Boris Johnson’s decision in early 2016 to “back Brexit” rather than throw his lot in with David Cameron is widely seen as the critical factor in the improbable win for the Leave campaign.  

That result cost Cameron his job, and the inability to find a Brexit that could command enough parliamentary support drove his successor, Theresa May, from office after three tumultuous years. The Conservative Party, after suffering a drubbing at the hands of Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party in the European elections in summer 2019, turned to Johnson as their last hope of delivering some sort of Brexit and seeing off the threat of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party and a resurgent Farage. 

Johnson delivered. He took the UK out of the EU in January 2020 with a withdrawal agreement – albeit one that needed renegotiation to deal with its flaws on Northern Ireland – and on Christmas Eve that year signed a deal sealing the UK’s future trade and security relationship with the EU. At every stage Johnson hailed those agreements as triumphs – great deals in themselves, but also putting enough distance between the UK and the EU to allow the UK to spend the rest of the decade harvesting “Brexit benefits”. As ever, the Brexit reality is not quite as simple as Johnson had claimed.

The government is struggling with Brexit implementation

Despite two and a half years passing since the UK finally left the single market and the customs union it is clear that it has not yet fully implemented Brexit – in part simply due to lack of capacity and the complexity of the changes required. The target for introducing controls on goods at the UK border has been repeatedly delayed – with full controls on EU goods to be implemented only in October 2024, with the prospect of supply chain disruption and price hikes to come as EU exporters confront the real cost of doing business with the UK after Brexit.¹